“I was born in Harlem, raised in the South Bronx, went to public school...” — Colin Powell Quote

I was born in Harlem, raised in the South Bronx, went to public school, got out of public college, went into the Army, and then I just stuck with it.

Giving back involves a certain amount of giving up.

In 2008, I spoke out against calling the president a Muslim as if that was a curse. And then in 2012, once again, I was very disturbed about some of the intolerance I was seeing in the party, so I made a statement saying there's a level of intolerance in some parts of the Republican Party. And there was, and I think there still is.

Too often we act - ask our schools to be truant officers, our teachers to be truant officers, because we're giving them children who have, you know, they're not ready to learn. And if they're not ready to learn by the third grade, they know they're behind.

But now with the living conditions deteriorating, and with the sure knowledge that we are slated for destruction, we have been transformed into an implacable army of liberation.

When I was in the Army, the unit I served in, you could never stop. It was a volunteer unit, and there was a fairly high rate of attrition. The people who stayed through are the people who were either great at it or the people who just didn't know how to stop. And I fell into that second category.

If my soldiers were to begin to think, not one of them would remain in the army.

I think 'One Woman Army' sums up the overall picture. I talk about love, about life, and I talk about what I want and would hope for and what I need as a woman. It kind of just says it all, you know?